Furthermore....Scandalous use of scandal'

Thursday, June 27, 2013

The Benghazi whoppers, the IRS harassment, the NSA snooping — they’re hardly tempests in a teapot. But are they really “scandals”?

The term has become so loosely and freely applied that nowadays just about any routine controversy gets the label applied to it. The “out” party, of course, is always eager to pin the label on the “in” party.

When the Church had more or less exclusive purview over the term , scandal signified the mandatory ingredient of sin.

St. Thomas, we’re told, defined scandal as an action evil in itself, entailing spirtual downfall. Benghazi, IRS and NSA don’t quite seem to make the cut.

Expatiating on the topic, however, Thomas spoke of “inductive” scandal and “pharasaical” scandal. Inductive involved the enticement of others to commit sin. If you stretch the definition of sin to include nasty politics or arguably unconstitutional activity, then the IRS flap might get just in under Thomas’ definitional wire.

“Pharasaical” scandal involved the element of maliciousness. This nudges Benghazi closer to coverage. Might it not be said there was an element of maliciousness in insisting at the height of a campaign that the Benghazi attack was inspired by a video protest when the truth was fully and well known to be otherwise?